FRIDAY OF WEEK ONE IN ORDINARY TIME - 2024

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

A great prophet has appeared among us;
God has visited his people. LK 7:16

1 SAMUEL 8:4-7,10-22 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

Your chosen people's demand for a king so they could be like other nations is so recklessly foolish. They were chosen from all the nations to be Your own. God made Himself known to them, walked with them, cared for them, and saved them over and over again. This is the story of the human race. God created us for Himself. We are designed by God to live in a certain way if we are to be happy and whole in heart, mind, soul, body, and spirit but we reject Your commandments, we fail to embrace Your will and submit our lives to Wisdom. And when we are stubborn and self-willed when we are hard-hearted and deaf to reason and common sense You let us have our way and sooner than later we are on the road to self-destruction.

Yet You never abandon us even when we so foolishly and wantonly reject You. You remain close, You seek us tirelessly and woo us tenderly and unceasingly despite our callous rebuffs of Your love. We chase the world and we seek to emulate, adulate, and fawn over those with money, power, prestige, fame, and other ephemeral qualities that we find attractive. 

It pierces the heart to hear You say to Samuel, ‘Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for it is not you they have rejected; they have rejected me from ruling over them.’ But this is what we do over and over again when we reject Your commandments. What sublime ignorance or foolhardiness to think we can operate with the operation manual that is given to us by the Creator. No wonder we are living in a world gone mad and is on course towards total chaos and ruin.

You continue to woo us through Your Word, Your Church, and through the voices of holy men and women but we refuse to see, to hear, to accept that without You we are nothing. What will it take, Beloved, for us to finally come to our senses and return to You? What terrible tragedies must the whole world undergo before we fall on our knees and cry out to You to help us and save us? Listen to the prayers of Your faithful remnant O Lord and reduce the number of days of the chastisement that will surely visit us sooner rather than later.

PSALM 88(89):16-19 ©

Happy the people who acclaim such a king,

who walk, O Lord, in the light of your face,
who find their joy every day in your name,
who make your justice the source of their bliss.

For you, O Lord, are the glory of their strength;

by your favour it is that our might is exalted;
for our ruler is in the keeping of the Lord;
our king in the keeping of the Holy One of Israel.

I will sing forever of your love, O Lord.

MARK 2:1-12 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

As we read and meditate on today's Gospel passage of the Liturgy about the four friends who brought their paralytic friend to You we are reminded that the four friends are the four evangelists who have given us the four Gospel. The power of Your Word contained in the Gospels can raise our paralyzed and inert souls to new life. By the power of Your Word our sins are forgiven and we are cleansed and made whole again. 

We are told that there was no room left and they were unable to bring their friend to You from the front door - however faith found a way, faith always does. The Church You founded is full of those who are panting for Your Word O Lord and even though it may seem there is no room, there is always room for those who seek You with a sincere heart. Also, there will always be skeptics, naysayers, those who come only to criticize, to complain, to nitpick, whose delicate spiritual sensibilities are offended because God chooses the sinner over the Pharisees, the Scribes, the Chief Priests, the hypocrites, the self-proclaimed arbiter of God's Law over compassion tenderness, forgiveness, mercy, and grace.

To every sinner and to all who pray for sinners with tears and lamentations, and broken hearts You say:

‘My child, your sins are forgiven.’ and ‘I order you: get up, pick up your stretcher, and go off home.’ And the man got up, picked up his stretcher at once and walked out in front of everyone, so that they were all astounded and praised God saying, ‘We have never seen anything like this.’

This is also the experience O Lord of every sinner who has been forgiven by You in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Thank You, Lord, keep us faithful to the end